The first of my weekly polls has concluded and the results are in…
With 57% of the total votes Luke was the most prefered Gospel account while Matthew came in a reasonably close second with 43% of the votes.
Luke’s account of Jesus’ life and ministry was written utilising a wide variety of sources, including eye witness accounts. And as stated in the opening introduction is an orderly account so that it’s original recipient “may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.” (Luke 1:4) Luke had gone to a lot of effort to ensure that his account was complete and historically correct.
Matthew’s main purpose in writing his account was to prove to the Jewish readers that Jesus is the promised Messiah. And that Jesus fulfilled the Old Testament Scriptures through his life and ministry.
Unfortunately in this poll Mark & John didn’t register any votes at all which is a bit surprising seeing as John’s purpose to writing was “to bring his readers to the belief that Jesus is the Christ and the Son of God, and thus to bring them into an experience of eternal life.” (Sourced from the New Bible Dictionary) While Mark’s Gospel in many ways is the simplest account of Jesus’ ministry to follow as it is succinct, unadorned and quite vivid.
This weeks poll in some ways may just be a bit harder to work out as it is more of a straight forward question “How many angels are named in the Bible?” – I guess time will tell if you get the answer right.
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